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Cake Bakers and Trouble Makers, BBC TwoTuesday, 21 July 2015
Lucy Worsley, historian and TV presenter – or perhaps that should be the other way round, since the BBC seems to give her a new series about every six weeks – is the unrivalled queen of the soundbite. Subtitled as Worsley's "100 Years of the WI", this canter around the stately circumference of the Women's Institute, now 100 years old, was niftily pinned together with sonorous adjectives and cacophonous alliteration. Read more... |
The Javone Prince Show, BBC TwoMonday, 20 July 2015
You may know Javone Prince as Jerwayne – the self-appointed ladies' man from Channel 4's PhoneShop – or from various memorably comic turns in CBBC's Horrible Histories. Now the BBC has given the comedy actor his own four-part variety series, and it got off to a very strong start. Read more... |
Dispatches: Escape from Isis, Channel 4Thursday, 16 July 2015
“Say your last words before you leave this life.” Somewhere in the so-called Islamic State, a woman was accused of adultery. Her father joined her accusers, then, as her shrouded body was lowered into a pit, picked up a rock and hurled it at her. We didn’t have to watch her die, but Moona, an Iraqi activist using the internet to spread the truth about IS, did. It’s remarkable that Moona is still alive. IS gunmen turned up at her flat to confiscate her laptop and threaten her family. Read more... |
Veep, Series Four, Sky AtlanticThursday, 16 July 2015
When Jim Hacker MP was unexpectedly promoted to the position of PM, the classic sitcom Yes, Minister required just a small tweak in title and it was pretty much business as usual, albeit with a grander sense of potential impact. When the shit hit the fan, there was alarm, followed by quiet restraint and arched eyebrows before predetermined Machiavellian plans were unveiled and the credits rolled over a comforting closure. Read more... |
Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners, BBC TwoThursday, 16 July 2015
If Britain has created a national myth about slavery, it’s surely been centred on the pioneering abolitionists whose actions in the early 19th century led first to the ending of the slave trade across the British Empire in 1807, later to the abolition of the institution in 1834. It’s a record of which, compared to the approach of other nations to the same issue (and the speed of their actions), we may even feel a hint of pride. Read more... |
The Outcast, BBC One / Marvel's Agent Carter, FoxMonday, 13 July 2015
Adapted in two parts by Sadie Jones from her own 2008 novel, The Outcast (**) is a morbid tale of emotional sterility and many kinds of self-harm. Leaving his troubled childhood for an even worse young-adulthood, our "hero", Lewis Aldridge, carves a great gash down his forearm with a cut-throat razor. However, he's only the most extreme case in a whole gallery of weirdos. Read more... |
The Ashes, Sky Sports Ashes / Channel 5Thursday, 09 July 2015
22 men with clubs and Neanderthal facial hair, fighting an ancient, ritualised turf war over a symbolic, cremated token… No sooner did you think the latest series of Game of Thrones had finished than a bunch of feisty blokes from somewhere far scarier and more violent than Westeros pitch up and start throwing heavy objects around. Read more... |
Vet School, ITVTuesday, 07 July 2015
The clinically white buildings of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Medicine, nickname Dick Vet, are just outside Edinburgh, with departments for wildlife, exotic animals, domestic pets and large animals, from horses to cattle. It was founded by William Dick, a human anatomist, in 1823. It is among the top 10 such schools in the world, and came to worldwide fame by cloning Dolly the sheep. Read more... |
A Song for Jenny, BBC OneMonday, 06 July 2015
Rev Julie Nicholson, bereaved by her daughter’s death in the 7/7 bombings, became known as the vicar who can’t forgive. Her 2010 memoir, also entitled A Song for Jenny, detailed the way her pain undermined her vocation, to the point where she gave up preaching the following year. Playwright Frank McGuinness has been working on this adaptation since the book was published, and in human terms, it’s superb. Read more... |
Rock 'n' Roll America, BBC FourSaturday, 04 July 2015
One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock rock… For those who orchestrated the swing from blues to rock ‘n’ roll, it’s getting late. Like the Chelsea pensioners, their numbers are beginning to dwindle and, as time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future, their testimony must be recorded for posterity, lest it be lost for ever in the music mists (currently somewhere off the coast of Kintyre). Except – and it’s a fairly big "except" – this stuff’s already fairly well documented, no... Read more... |
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